Grand Illusion Overview:

Grand Illusion (1937) was a War - Drama Film directed by Jean Renoir and produced by Albert Pinkovitch and Frank Rollmer.

Academy Awards 1938 --- Ceremony Number 11 (source: AMPAS)

AwardRecipientResult
Best PictureRealization D'Art CinematographiqueNominated
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BlogHub Articles:

Grand Illusion (1937)

By 4 Star Film Fan on Feb 11, 2016 From 4 Star Films

I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve been bred on a certain brand of war movie, but I naively went into Grand Illusion expecting a typical P.O.W. drama. In the back of my mind, I was even ready to compare this title to later works like Stalag 17 (1953) or The Great Escape (1963). Hone... Read full article

Grand Illusion (1937)

By 4 Star Film Fan on Feb 11, 2016 From 4 Star Films

I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve been bred on a certain brand of war movie, but I naively went into Grand Illusion expecting a typical P.O.W. drama. In the back of my mind, I was even ready to compare this title to later works like Stalag 17 (1953) or The Great Escape (1963). Hone... Read full article

Grand Illusion (1937)

By Beatrice on Oct 8, 2013 From Flickers in Time

Grand Illusion (“La grande illusion”) (1937) Directed by Jean Renoir Written by Jean Renoir and Charles Spaak 1937/France R?alisation d’art cin?matographique (RAC) Repeat viewing #106 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die IMDb users say 8.1/10; I say 10/10 I consider Jean Re... Read full article

Grand Illusion

By Alyson on Dec 24, 2010 From The Best Picture Project

Before we talk about the film, I?d like to shine some light upon the director, Jean Renoir. ?Born in Paris, he was the son of the impressionist painter Pierre Renoir. ?In World War I, he fought in the French army, and earned a Croix de Guerre for his heroism that left him suffering from wounds that ... Read full article

The Grand Illusion (1937, Jean Renoir)

on Dec 11, 2008 From The Stop Button

I can’t figure out who Renoir had in mind when he made Grand Illusion. It goes without saying he placed incredible trust in his audience, but his expectations are somewhat beyond anything else I’ve seen. Grand Illusion is a film with events–momentous, important events–but the... Read full article

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Quotes from

No Quote for this film.

Facts about

Goebbels made sure that the film's print was one of the first things seized by the Germans when they occupied France. He referred to Jean Renoir as "Cinematic Public Enemy Number 1". For many years it was assumed that the film had been destroyed in an Allied air raid in 1942. However, a German film archivist named Frank Hansel, then a Nazi officer in Paris, had actually smuggled it back to Berlin. Then when the Russians entered Berlin in 1945, the film found its way to an archive in Moscow. When Jean Renoir came to restore his film in the 1960s, he knew nothing of Hansel's acquisition and was working from an old muddy print. Purely by coincidence at the same time, the Russian archive swapped some material with an archive in Toulouse. Included in that exchange was the original negative print. However, because so many prints of the film existed at the time, it would be another 30 years before anyone realised that the version in Toulouse was actually the original negative.
The uniform worn by Jean Gabin was actually owned and worn by Jean Renoir, who served in the air force during WWI.
The movie title "La Grande Illusion" is a reference to the pre-war book "The Great Illusion" by Norman Angell, which argued that war was outmoded, unscientific, and absurd. Though little-known today, it was a tremendous sensation when first published in 1913, and was often cited as evidence that a long European war "could not happen". Renoir aptly picks the title for his own work, knowing that his audience would recognize the reference.
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